Table of Contents:
  • pt. 1. The merging of early commercial traditions to 1663
  • Business practice in North America and Europe at the time of contact
  • Companies and commerce in North America: the case of fur, 1603-1663
  • pt. 2. The colonial business of New France, 1663-1763
  • Crown, colony, and business endeavour: an introduction and a framework
  • In pursuit of certainty: Canada's fur frontier, 1653-1763
  • Old regime business in the new world: merchants, craft producers, and peasant farmers
  • pt. 3. Colonial capitalism in transition: 1791-1871
  • Setting the contours for colonial capitalism: an introduction
  • The business of fur: 1763-1871
  • Arrested transition: Atlantic Canada
  • From hinterland to heartland: Upper Canada/Ontario
  • Farm, factory, and finance: Lower Canada/Quebec
  • Ties that bind: railways, tariffs, and business, 1867-1885
  • pt. 4. The age of business consolidation, 1885-1929
  • Commanding heights
  • Networks of progress
  • Gifts of nature
  • Nation builders
  • Integration and disintegration
  • Part 5. The age of the activist state, 1930-1984
  • The incomplete Leviathan
  • The arsenal economy
  • 'Province builders'
  • Millionaires, mandarins, and multinationals
  • Epilogue. Leaping in the dark.